Founder Auguste Comte considered it about society, the space in which people’s lives take place. Without it, life is impossible, which explains the importance of studying this topic.

What does the concept “society” mean? How does it differ from the concepts “country” and “state”, which are used in everyday speech, often as identical?

Country is a geographical concept that denotes a part of the world, a territory that has certain boundaries.

- a political organization of society with a certain type of government (monarchy, republic, councils, etc.), bodies and structure of government (authoritarian or democratic).

- the social organization of the country, ensuring the joint life of people. This is a part of the material world isolated from nature, representing a historically developing form of connections and relationships between people in the process of their life.

Many scientists have tried to study society, to determine its nature and essence. The ancient Greek philosopher and scientist understood society as a collection of individuals who united to satisfy their social instincts. Epicurus believed that the main thing in society is social justice as the result of an agreement between people not to harm each other and not to suffer harm.

In Western European social science of the 17th-18th centuries. ideologists of the new rising strata of society ( T. Hobbes, J.-J. Rousseau), who opposed religious dogma, was put forward the idea of ​​a social contract, i.e. agreements between people, each of which has sovereign rights to control its own actions. This idea was opposed to the theological approach to organizing society according to the will of God.

Attempts have been made to define society based on the identification of some primary cell of society. So, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the family is the most ancient of all societies. She is the likeness of a father, the people are like children, and all those born equal and free, if they alienate their freedom, do so only for their own benefit.

Hegel tried to consider society as a complex system of relations, highlighting as the subject of consideration the so-called, i.e., a society where there is a dependence of everyone on everyone.

The works of one of the founders of scientific sociology were of great importance for the scientific understanding of society O. Konta who believed that the structure of society is determined by the forms of human thinking ( theological, metaphysical and positive). He viewed society itself as a system of elements, which are the family, classes and the state, and the basis is formed by the division of labor between people and their relationships with each other. We find a definition of society close to this in Western European sociology of the 20th century. Yes, y Max Weber, society is a product of the interaction of people as a result of their social actions in the interests of everyone.

T. Parsons defined society as a system of relations between people, the connecting principle of which is norms and values. From the point of view K. Marx, society is a historically developing set of relationships between people, emerging in the process of their joint activities.

Recognizing the approach to society as the relations of individuals, K. Marx, having analyzed the connections and relationships between them, introduced the concepts of “social relations”, “relations of production”, “socio-economic formations” and a number of others. Relations of production, forming social relations, create society, located at one or another specific stage of historical development. Consequently, according to Marx, production relations are the root cause of all human relations and create large social system called society.

According to the ideas of K. Marx, society is the interaction of people. The form of social structure does not depend on their (people's) will. Each form of social structure is generated by a certain stage of development of the productive forces.

People cannot freely dispose of productive forces, because these forces are the product of people’s previous activities, their energy. But this energy itself is limited by the conditions in which people are placed by the productive forces that have already been conquered, by the form of social structure that existed before them and which is the product of the activity of the previous generation.

American sociologist E. Shils identified the following characteristics of society:

• it is not an organic part of any larger system;
• marriages are concluded between representatives of a given community;
• it is replenished by the children of those people who are members of this community;
• it has its own territory;
• it has a self-name and its own history;
• it has its own control system;
• it exists longer than the average life expectancy of an individual;
• it is united by a common system of values, norms, laws, and rules.

It is obvious that in all the above definitions, to one degree or another, an approach to society is expressed as an integral system of elements that are in a state of close interconnection. This approach to society is called systemic. The main task of the systems approach in the study of society is to combine various knowledge about society into a coherent system, which could become a unified theory of society.

Played a major role in systemic research of society A. Malinovsky. He believed that society can be viewed as a social system, the elements of which are related to the basic needs of people for food, shelter, protection, and sexual satisfaction. People come together to satisfy their needs. In this process, secondary needs arise for communication, cooperation, and control over conflicts, which contributes to the development of language, norms, and rules of the organization, and this in turn requires coordination, management and integrative institutions.

Life of society

The life of society is carried out in four main areas: economic, social, political and spiritual.

Economic sphere there is a unity of production, specialization and cooperation, consumption, exchange and distribution. It ensures the production of goods necessary to satisfy the material needs of individuals.

Social sphere represent people (clan, tribe, nationality, nation, etc.), various classes (slaves, slave owners, peasants, proletariat, bourgeoisie) and other social groups that have different financial status and attitudes to existing social orders.

Political sphere covers power structures (political parties, political movements) that control people.

Spiritual (cultural) sphere includes philosophical, religious, artistic, legal, political and other views of people, as well as their moods, emotions, ideas about the world around them, traditions, customs, etc.

All of these spheres of society and their elements continuously interact, change, vary, but in the main remain unchanged (invariant). For example, the eras of slavery and our time differ sharply from each other, but at the same time all spheres of society retain the functions assigned to them.

In sociology, there are different approaches to finding foundations choosing priorities in people’s social life(the problem of determinism).

Aristotle also emphasized the extremely important importance government system for the development of society. Identifying the political and social spheres, he viewed man as a “political animal.” Under certain conditions, politics can become a decisive factor that completely controls all other areas of society.

Supporters technological determinism The determining factor of social life is seen in material production, where the nature of labor, technique, and technology determine not only the quantity and quality of material products produced, but also the level of consumption and even the cultural needs of people.

Supporters cultural determinism They believe that the backbone of society consists of generally accepted values ​​and norms, the observance of which will ensure the stability and uniqueness of the society itself. The difference in cultures predetermines the difference in the actions of people, in the organization of material production, in the choice of forms of political organization (in particular, this can be associated with the well-known expression: “Every people has the government that it deserves”).

K. Marx based his concept on the determining role of the economic system, believing that it is the method of production of material life that determines the social, political and spiritual processes in society.

In modern Russian sociological literature there are opposing approaches to solving problems of primacy in the interaction of social spheres of society. Some authors tend to deny this very idea, believing that society can function normally if each of the social spheres consistently fulfills its functional purpose. They proceed from the fact that the hypertrophied “swelling” of one of the social spheres can have a detrimental effect on the fate of the entire society, as well as underestimating the role of each of these spheres. For example, underestimating the role of material production (the economic sphere) leads to a decrease in the level of consumption and an increase in crisis phenomena in society. The erosion of norms and values ​​that govern the behavior of individuals (the social sphere) leads to social entropy, disorder and conflict. Accepting the idea of ​​the primacy of politics over the economy and other social spheres (especially in a totalitarian society) can lead to the collapse of the entire social system. In a healthy social organism, the vital activity of all its spheres is in unity and interconnection.

If unity weakens, the efficiency of society will decrease, up to a change in its essence or even collapse. As an example, let us cite the events of the last years of the twentieth century, which led to the defeat of socialist social relations and the collapse of the USSR.

Society lives and develops according to objective laws unity (of society) with ; ensuring social development; energy concentration; promising activity; unity and struggle of opposites; transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones; negations - negations; compliance of production relations with the level of development of productive forces; dialectical unity of the economic basis and social superstructure; increasing the role of the individual, etc. Violation of the laws of social development is fraught with major cataclysms and large losses.

Whatever goals the subject of social life sets for himself, being in the system of social relations, he must obey them. In the history of society, hundreds of wars are known that brought huge losses to it, regardless of the goals of the rulers who unleashed them. Suffice it to recall Napoleon, Hitler, the former US presidents who started the war in Vietnam and Iraq.

Society is an integral social organism and system

Society was likened to a social organism, all parts of which are interdependent, and their functioning is aimed at ensuring its life. All parts of society perform the functions assigned to them to ensure its life: procreation; ensuring normal conditions for the life of its members; creating production, distribution and consumption capabilities; successful activities in all its areas.

Distinctive features of society

An important distinguishing feature of society is its autonomy, which is based on its versatility and ability to create the necessary conditions to meet the diverse needs of individuals. Only in society can a person engage in narrowly professional activities, achieve its high efficiency, relying on the division of labor existing in it.

Society has self-sufficiency, which allows him to fulfill the main task - to provide people with conditions, opportunities, forms of organization of life that facilitate the achievement of personal goals, self-realization as comprehensively developed individuals.

Society has a great integrating force. It provides its members with the opportunity to use habitual patterns of behavior, follow established principles, and subordinates them to generally accepted norms and rules. It isolates those who do not follow them in various ways and means, ranging from the Criminal Code, administrative law to public censure. Essential characteristic of society is the level achieved self-regulation, self-government, which arise and are formed within himself with the help of social institutions, which, in turn, are at a historically certain level of maturity.

Society as an integral organism has the quality systematic, and all its elements, being closely interconnected, form a social system that makes the attraction and cohesion between the elements of a given material structure stronger.

Part And whole as components of a single system connected inseparable bonds between each other and support each other. At the same time, both elements have relative independence in relation to each other. The stronger the whole is in comparison with its parts, the stronger the pressure of unification. And on the contrary, the stronger the parts are in relation to the system, the weaker it is and the stronger the tendency to separate the whole into its component parts. Therefore, to form a stable system, it is necessary to select appropriate elements and their unity. Moreover, the greater the discrepancy, the stronger the adhesion bonds should be.

The formation of a system is possible both on the natural basis of attraction, and on the suppression and subordination of one part of the system to another, that is, on violence. In this regard, different organic systems are built on different principles. Some systems are based on the dominance of natural connections. Others rely on the dominance of force, others seek to take refuge under the protection of strong structures or exist at their expense, others unite on the basis of unity in the fight against external enemies in the name of the highest freedom of the whole, etc. There are also systems based on cooperation, where force is not plays a significant role. At the same time, there are certain limits beyond which both attraction and repulsion can lead to the death of a given system. And this is natural, since excessive attraction and cohesion pose a threat to the preservation of the diversity of system qualities and thereby weaken the system’s ability to self-develop. On the contrary, strong repulsion undermines the integrity of the system. Moreover, the greater the independence of the parts within the system, the higher their freedom of action in accordance with the potentials inherent in them, the less they have the desire to go beyond its framework and vice versa. That is why the system should be formed only by those elements that are more or less homogeneous with each other, and where the tendency of the whole, although dominant, does not contradict the interests of the parts.

The law of every social system is hierarchy of its elements and ensuring optimal self-realization through the most rational construction of its structure in given conditions, as well as the maximum use of environmental conditions to transform it in accordance with its qualities.

One of the important laws of the organic system — law to ensure its integrity, or, in other words, vitality of all elements of the system. Therefore, ensuring the existence of all elements of the system is a condition for the vitality of the system as a whole.

Fundamental Law any material system, ensuring its optimal self-realization, is the law of the priority of the whole over its constituent parts. Therefore, the greater the danger to the existence of the whole, the greater the number of victims from its parts.

Like any organic system in difficult conditions society sacrifices a part in the name of the whole, the main and fundamental. In society as an integral social organism, the common interest is in the foreground under all conditions. However, social development can be carried out the more successfully the more the general interest and the interests of individuals are in harmonious correspondence with each other. Harmonious correspondence between general and individual interests can be achieved only at a relatively high stage of social development. Until such a stage is reached, either public or personal interest prevails. The more difficult the conditions and the greater the inadequacy of the social and natural components, the more strongly the general interest manifests itself, being realized at the expense and to the detriment of the interests of individuals.

At the same time, the more favorable the conditions that arose either on the basis of the natural environment, or created in the process of the production activities of people themselves, the less, other things being equal, the general interest is realized at the expense of the private.

Like any system, society contains certain strategies for survival, existence and development. The survival strategy comes to the fore in conditions of extreme lack of material resources, when the system is forced to sacrifice its intensive development in the name of extensive, or more precisely, in the name of universal survival. In order to survive, the social system withdraws material resources produced by the most active part of society in favor of those who cannot provide themselves with everything necessary for life.

Such a transition to extensive development and redistribution of material resources, if necessary, occurs not only on a global, but also on a local scale, that is, within small social groups if they find themselves in an extreme situation when funds are extremely insufficient. In such conditions, both the interests of individuals and the interests of society as a whole suffer, since it is deprived of the opportunity to develop intensively.

Otherwise, the social system develops after emerging from an extreme situation, but being in conditions inadequacy of social and natural components. In that case survival strategy is replaced by existence strategies. The strategy of existence is implemented in conditions when a certain minimum of funds arises to provide for everyone and, in addition, there is a certain surplus of them in excess of what is necessary for life. In order to develop the system as a whole, surplus produced funds are withdrawn and they concentrate on decisive areas of social development in in the hands of the most powerful and enterprising. However, other individuals are limited in consumption and are usually content with the minimum. Thus, in unfavorable conditions of existence the general interest makes its way at the expense of the interests of individuals, a clear example of which is the formation and development of Russian society.

The society was divided - its property on the territory of Russia passed to the Knowledge of Russia society. The new organization fell into decline in the 1990s: the number of members decreased and many regional branches disappeared. In June 2016, the congress of the Knowledge of Russia society decided to liquidate this organization.

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✪ Investing in real estate. What is more important: skill or knowledge?

✪ From the experience of a class teacher | Lisnaya Anna Yurievna

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Greetings, dear friend, in touch Denis Teterin, in this short video I would like to tell you about the attitude towards skill and knowledge, we all understand perfectly well that training is very important to achieve any results, I understand this perfectly and completely agree with you, I myself am constantly learning the same, I encourage you too I teach naturally, I have paid courses, I make money from this, so everything is fine here, you always need to study, I invest money in myself, I also take money from people who come to me to study, and together we change lives for the better, it’s all great, great, as in the second opinion, what is more important in your opinion, skill or all the same knowledge, people are very different, some there is a category of people who are deeply convinced that constantly learning, learning, learning is all cool, and this makes them some kind of superhumans, much better than their immediate environment, there are a lot of such people who really know how to learn, they know how to do it, they study constantly, everything is great, well done, I’m ready to shake their hand, but at the same time they are poor, they have nothing, they know how to build a business, how to write a business plan, they took trainings, they did their homework, they defended some projects in these trainings everything is great cool beyond your own business no it’s the same as in institutes you know we have economic financial institutes of computer technology institutes teachers teach people how to do a business build a business and not a single day in their life have they had their own business the same the analogy is identical when a person is constantly learning and undergoing business training, but he does not have a business, so I am deeply convinced that if you have to choose between two evils, the most important one in life is a skill, not your knowledge, but a skill, because you will agree that your knowledge will give you, well, you have completed the training, but you have you have knowledge further that what they how they will change your life in general in no way the skill of course will change of course you will make a lot of mistakes you will do something may be wrong, even most likely wrong, but this will give you confidence that I tried it, did it wrong, I have the opportunity try something again and do it maybe a little better maybe right or maybe ideally don’t need to do it for a long time ideally and well need to be done no matter how but quickly therefore the most important skill changes your life not your knowledge not your training courses attending webinars books read they won’t change your life they won’t set the table for you and your family they won’t buy you a new car but your skill when you came did something you succeeded something didn’t work out there were clients who paid you money this is a skill everything is cool you got calls you start to be an intermediary, a link in some business, you build your own business, you open production, this is a skill through failures, through what you want and don’t want, you build your personal experience, you have your own path and skill that makes your life truly exciting, so if you choose between endlessly learning and being stupid to do, I always choose to do, so be those who do, just be doers, doers and not endless students, Denis Deterin was in touch, wait for new videos, subscribe to the youtube channel bye

Story

The reasons for the creation of the Society were:

• significant damage caused by the Great Patriotic War to the entire system of Soviet education;
• mass deprofessionalization of the population caused by the war;
• a course towards the speedy creation of a Soviet nuclear shield;
• the Cold War, which spurred the growth of competitiveness of the Soviet high-value industry.

The objective need for mass education of the adult population - an “academy of millions” - was passed off as an initiative of the intellectual part of society, supported by the party and the government.

Initially, the future structure was called the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge. On May 1, 1947, the appeal appeared in the Soviet press; On May 12, at its first meeting, the organizing committee decided to create branches of the Society in the union republics, the largest regional and regional centers of Russia.

Soon, one after another, 14 republican societies for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge arose, and in 1957, the 15th society - the All-Union Society.

It became prestigious to be an engineer and do research work; young people flocked to technical universities. The image of the worker-intellectual was born in cinema, created by director Joseph Kheifits and artist Alexei Batalov (“Big Family”, 1954).

In 1963, the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge was renamed the All-Union Society "Knowledge". By this time, an adult Soviet person listened to an average of 4 to 5 lectures annually.

In 1964, the IV Congress of “knowledge workers” decided to create people’s universities, thereby paving the main path from scattered lectures and brochures to systematic special education. Enterprises not only improved the qualifications of their personnel at public universities, but also attracted academic circles to solve applied problems. And the leaders of higher education received the opportunity to open and debug the most advanced faculties at these universities (for example, cybernetics), which only appeared in universities years later.

By the beginning of 2017, it was planned to form regional branches and update the staff, after which the recruitment of lecturers was to begin. The organization's budget for 2017 was 100 million rubles.

The sphere of activity of the updated “Knowledge”, in addition to increasing civic consciousness, included spiritual and moral education, popularization and protection of the Russian language, literature, and a healthy lifestyle. The participants of the organization, the majority of the heads of branches in the regions of which were representatives of universities, called the strategic objectives of the Knowledge Society “work to transform knowledge into beliefs,” the broadcast of “state ideology” and the formation in the mass consciousness of “the image of the country as a modern dynamically developing state.”

Society is a stable and self-developing association of people connected by the need to satisfy common needs and interacting with each other on the basis of social norms.

Society is a complex self-developing system of connections between people and social relations. That is, society presupposes interaction between people, which is expressed in the fact that people enter into social relations. Society does not exist outside of interaction and social relations.

Considerationsociety as a system of social relations, the basis of which is economic (material), political and spiritual (cultural) relations, allows:

first of all, approach it specifically historically, highlight various socio-economic formations (slave-owning, feudal, capitalist, socialist society);

secondly, identify the specifics of the main spheres of public life (economic, political, spiritual);

thirdly, clearly define the subjects of social communication (personality, seven nation, etc.).

In society, it is not biological, but social laws that operate primarily.

Signs of society :

1. is a union of people interacting with each other to satisfy common needs that are significant to them. These are needs, for example, for communication, food, safety, etc. These needs can be most effectively satisfied only through coordinated activities. This does not mean that there are no social contradictions in society caused by the discrepancy between private, individual interests. Individual interests of people will vary, since all people are not the same from a psychological, physical point of view, as well as their abilities and moral principles.

2. this is the interaction of people endowed with will and consciousness. In society there must be meaningful, conscious, volitional relationships and relationships with each other. People realize the “benefit” and the need to exist in precisely this form of organization as a society.

3. characterized by special stability. It is conditioned objectively, since the needs that underlie the unification of people into society, its formation, exist constantly and require daily satisfaction.

4. self-sufficiency. Those. society is capable of creating and recreating through its own activity everything necessary for itself: both material and spiritual benefits. Thus, society is not part of a larger social system.

5. the presence of power and special norms for regulating social relations. Any interaction of elements requires certain rules and laws. People, uniting in a society, must also follow certain norms, rules of behavior and interaction developed by society itself, which make it possible to realize individual and public interests and ensure a certain orderliness of social relations. But it is necessary to take into account that the created norms may not suit one or another group of people, which leads to their violation. Therefore, in order to ensure compliance with the developed norms, social power is organized in society, capable of subordinating a person to the established rules.

6. presence of culture, which gives spiritual meaning to human life, unifies human desires and aspirations.

Spheres of public life that determine the necessary types of mutual activity: 1). material 2). spiritual 3). organizational (communicative).

Together with society there arises social power is an organized force that ensures the interaction of various social groups with the ability to subordinate to its will.

Society cannot do without social institutions.

Social institutions- these are stable social associations, communities and groups that perform necessary functions and interact with each other on the basis of various social norms.

Social connections in them are determined by the organization of management, that is, it is precisely the need to satisfy certain interests, i.e. performing functions in the field of management underlies the formation and activities of a social institution. These connections are institutional, i.e. Social institutions are created precisely as associations of people.

Social community is a collection of people characterized by the conditions of their life that are common to a given group of interacting individuals. Social communities can be divided into types, the most common of which are classes, layers and groups. Concept social group is one-order.

Their emergence is due to the objective need of society for special regulation in the spheres of social relations and social activities. Each more or less formalized institution has its own goal, i.e. the range of group or public interests and needs to which the activities of the institute are directed. The diversity of social institutions is determined by the differentiation of social activities into various types: economic, political, ideological, cultural, etc.

Social institutions include community, clan, family, nations, classes, castes, social and professional groups, city population, religious concessions, labor collectives, education system, family media, etc. The first largest political institution was the state.

Based on the nature of the organization, formal and informal institutions are distinguished. The activities of formal institutions are based on strictly established regulations (law, charter, job descriptions).

For example: Social strata are large groups of people that differ from each other in their position in the social structure of society (in terms of income, property, social rights and privileges). Caste is a social group whose membership is determined solely by birth. Estate is a social group that has rights and responsibilities fixed by custom or legal law and inherited.

Externally, a social institution looks like a collection of persons and institutions, equipped with certain material means, performing a specific social function. Social institutions perform the function of social management and social control in society. Each social institution appears in connection with the emergence of a certain need in society, in order to satisfy certain needs of members of society. The functional purpose of a social institution is connected with this.

Each social institution can be analyzed with:

functional side (to implement what functions it was created, i.e. to satisfy what needs of what part of society)

external (structural) side (who is included in a given social institution, by what criteria certain individuals or institutions are included in a social institution)

internal (substantive) side (this is a system of certain rules of behavior, social norms on the basis of which the activities of a social institution are built)

For example, Family: is created for the purpose of procreation, people are united on the principle of consanguinity, interaction is built on the basis of family norms. Judicial system: created for the administration of justice, consists of courts, acts on the basis of the law. State: created for the purpose of administering and ensuring law and order, integrating society, the political organization of society represented by the state. bodies and officials, acts on the basis of the law.

Social institutions are thus characterized by objectivity (they arise in response to the objective needs of society) and historicity (they arise in the process of historical development).

The conditions for the emergence of social institutions are:

emergence of social need

availability of resources (material, organizational)

the presence of a sociocultural environment (people with relevant interests)

existence of a procedure for formation and activities

The human community is called society. It is characterized by the fact that community members occupy a certain territory and conduct joint collective productive activities. In the community there is a distribution of the jointly produced product.

Society is a society characterized by production and social division of labor. Society can be characterized by many characteristics: for example, by nationality: French, Russian, German; state and cultural; by territorial and temporary; according to production method, etc.

Yet this society is not reduced either to its material carriers, which is characteristic of naturalism (the vulgar sociological interpretation of society) or to mentalities and forms of communication (“societies”), which is characteristic of its phenomenological interpretations. Society in the phenomenological understanding is mens intensas (mind, thought as if in itself) - a set of social worlds of our mentalities, worlds imprinted in our consciousness. Society, in a naturalistic approach, is res extensas (extended things) - a collection of bodies, physical and biological, that are in real objective relationships to each other.

In a number of species of living organisms, individual individuals do not have the necessary abilities or properties to ensure their material life (consumption of matter, accumulation of matter, reproduction). Such living organisms form communities, temporary or permanent, to ensure their material life. There are communities that actually represent a single organism: a swarm, an anthill, etc. In them, there is a division of biological functions between members of the community. Individuals of such organisms outside the community die. There are temporary communities - flocks, herds, in which, as a rule, individuals solve one problem or another without forming strong connections. A common property of all communities is the task of preserving a given type of living organism.

Closed society - according to K. Popper - a type of society characterized by a static social structure, limited mobility, inability to innovate, traditionalism, dogmatic authoritarian ideology (there is a system when the majority of members of society willingly accept the values ​​​​that are intended for them, usually this is a totalitarian society ).

In an open society, each participant is responsible for his own life and takes care primarily of himself, while the society respects the right to private property and personal dignity. In a closed society, it is a “sacred duty” to take care of others, and private property is a questionable (reprehensible) or even criminal, unworthy matter.

Notes:

• The above discussions about the types of closed and open societies can only be valid for societies the size of a state. If a person in an open society, in contrast to a closed one, finds basic values ​​on his own, then he can then coexist with other like-minded people who also form a society with him, which may have common values, but which cannot be classified as closed on this basis.
• There are universal human values, common to all humanity, otherwise it could not be called human society.

The functioning and development of a social system necessarily presupposes a succession of generations of people and, therefore, social inheritance - members of society pass on knowledge and culture from generation to generation. See "education" and "socialization".

Modern society

Undoubtedly, the key issue of any civilized society is the issue of its organization. Modern society is organized exclusively on capital, which gives it the right to be called capitalist.

Society in literature and cinema

R. Bradbury's novel “Fahrenheit 451” describes a totalitarian society, which is based on mass culture and consumer thinking, in which all books that make you think about life are subject to burning.

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Synonyms:

• Nobel Prize in Physics
• Chicago

See what “Society” is in other dictionaries:

society- society, and... Russian spelling dictionary

SOCIETY- in a broad sense, a part of the material world isolated from nature, representing a historically developing form of human life. In a narrow sense, defined. human stage history (socio. economic. formations, interformation... Philosophical Encyclopedia

SOCIETY- societies, societies (societies, societies wrong), cf. 1. A set of certain production relations that forms a special stage of development in the history of mankind. “...Marx put an end to the view of society as a mechanical unit... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Society- State * Army * War * Elections * Democracy * Conquest * Law * Politics * Crime * Order * Revolution * Freedom * Navy Power * Administration * Aristocra... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

This concept has two main meanings. In its broadest sense, society can be defined as a system of all existing methods and forms of interaction and unification of people(for example, in the expressions “modern society” or “feudal society”). In a narrower sense, the word “society” is used to mean any type or kind of social groups, the number and characteristics of which are determined by the diversity of people’s life activities (“Russian society”, “scientific community”, etc.). Both of these approaches are united by the understanding that a person is a “social being” and can live fully only within a certain group, feeling his unity with other people. These groups form a hierarchy - from the most large-scale, from humanity as a whole as the largest system of interaction, to professional, family and other small groups.

Development of scientific ideas about society.

The study of society is carried out by a special group of scientific disciplines, which are called social (humanitarian) sciences. Among the social sciences, the leading one is sociology (literally “social science”). Only it considers society as a single integral system. Other social sciences (ethics, political science, economics, history, religious studies, etc.) study individual aspects of social life without claiming to have holistic knowledge.

The concept of “society” presupposes an awareness of the objective laws of the collective life of people. This idea was born almost simultaneously with the birth of scientific thought. Already in ancient times, all the main problems in understanding the essence of society were recognized:

how different society is from nature (some thinkers generally blurred the line between society and nature, while others absolutized the differences between them);

what is the relationship between the collective and individual principles in the life of society (some interpreted society as the sum of individuals, while others, on the contrary, considered society as self-sufficient integrity);

how conflict and solidarity are combined in the development of society (some consider internal contradictions to be the engine of society’s development, others consider the desire for harmony of interests);

how society changes (is there improvement, progress, or does society develop cyclically).

Thinkers in ancient societies typically viewed human life as part of a universal order, a “cosmos.” In relation to the “structure of the world,” the word “cosmos” was first used by Heraclitus. The universalistic ideas of the ancients about society reflected the idea of ​​the unity of man and nature. This idea has become an integral feature of Eastern religions and teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism), which retain their influence in the East to this day.

In parallel with the development of naturalistic concepts, anthropological ones began to develop, emphasizing not the unity of man and nature, but the fundamental differences between them.

For a long time in social thought, society was considered from a political science point of view, i.e. identified with the state. Thus, Plato characterized, first of all, through the political functions of the state (protecting the population from external enemies, maintaining order within the country). Aristotle developed state-political ideas about society, interpreted as relations of domination and subordination, following Plato. However, he also highlighted purely social (not political) connections between people, considering, for example, friendship and mutual support of free, equal individuals. Aristotle emphasized the priority of individual interests and believed that “what should require relative, not absolute unity of both family and state”, that “every person is his own friend most of all and should love himself most of all” (“Ethics”). If from Plato there comes a tendency to consider society as an integral organism, then from Aristotle - as a collection of relatively independent individuals.

The social thought of modern times in the interpretation of society was based on the concept of the “state of nature” and the social contract (T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J.-J. Rousseau). Referring to “natural laws,” thinkers of modern times gave them, however, a completely social character. For example, the statement about the initial “war of all against all,” which is being replaced by a social contract, absolutizes the spirit of individualism of the new time. According to the point of view of these thinkers, society is based on rational contractual principles, formal legal concepts, and mutual utility. Thus, the anthropological interpretation of society triumphed over the naturalistic one, and the individualistic one over the collectivist (organistic) one.

This meta-paradigm (general picture) of understanding the life of society formed the basis of Western European civilization and, as it expanded, began to be perceived as the most “correct” one. However, in the 19th–20th centuries. Many attempts have been made to create an alternative meta-paradigm. Socialist and nationalist ideologies tried to establish the primacy of collectivist principles over individualist ones. Many philosophers (including Russians - N.F. Fedorov, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, A.L. Chizhevsky and others) proved the unity of the cosmos, the biosphere and human society. However, today these approaches remain on the periphery of public life, although their influence is growing.

From the undivided unity of scientific knowledge about society and nature characteristic of ancient and medieval societies, European thinkers of the modern era moved on to a differentiated system of independent sciences. The social sciences became strictly separated from the natural sciences, and the humanities themselves split into several independent sciences, which for a long time interacted weakly with each other. First of all, back in the 16th century, political science became isolated (thanks to the works of N. Machiavelli), then, at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries - criminology (starting with C. Beccaria), economic theory (with A. Smith) and ethics (with I. .Bentham). This fragmentation continued in the 19th–20th centuries (the formation of cultural studies, linguistics, religious studies, psychology, ethnology, ethology, etc. as independent sciences).

The desire for holistic knowledge about the life of society, however, has not disappeared. It led to the formation of a special “science of society,” sociology, which emerged in the 1830s and 1840s thanks primarily to the works of O. Comte. The idea he developed of society as a progressively developing organism became the foundation for all subsequent development of not only sociological sciences, but also other social sciences.

Within the social sciences of the 19th century, two main approaches to the study of the mechanisms of social development were clearly identified, emphasizing its opposite aspects - conflict and solidarity (consensus). Proponents of the first approach believed that society was better described in terms of conflicts of interests; supporters of the second preferred the terminology of shared values. The Marxist theory of social development, created in the 1840–1860s, which explains all phenomena of society “ultimately” by economic processes and internal contradictions in the life of society, served as the foundation for the development of conflict (radical) theories and still remains one of the most influential areas of social thought. A consensus view of social life is more typical of liberal thinkers.

In the second half of the 20th century, there was a tendency towards bringing together not only different social sciences, but also all of them with the natural and exact sciences. This trend was reflected, first of all, in the formation and growing popularity of synergetics founded by I. Prigogine - the science of the most general patterns of development and self-organization of complex systems (including society). Thus, at a new stage in the development of science, there is a return to the ideas of the ancients about a single “cosmos”.

Properties of society as a system.

Although the methodological approaches of representatives of various modern scientific schools of social science are largely different, there is still some unity of views on society.

Firstly, society has systematic– it is viewed not as a mechanical collection of individuals, but as united by stable interactions or relationships (social structures). Each person is a member of various social groups, performs prescribed social roles, and performs social actions. Falling out of his usual social system, the individual experiences severe stress. (One can recall at least the literary Robinson Crusoe, who suffered on a desert island not so much from a lack of means of subsistence as from the inability to communicate with other people.) Being an integral system, society has stability, a certain conservatism.

Secondly, society has versatility– creates the necessary conditions to satisfy the most diverse needs of individuals. Only in a society based on the division of labor can a person engage in narrowly professional activities, knowing that he will always be able to satisfy his needs for food and clothing. Only in society can he acquire the necessary labor skills and become acquainted with the achievements of culture and science. Society provides him with the opportunity to make a career and rise up the social hierarchy. In other words, society has that universality that gives people forms of organizing life that make it easier to achieve their personal goals. The progress of society is seen precisely in increasing its universality - in providing the individual with an ever-increasing range of opportunities. From this point of view, modern society is much more progressive, for example, primitive society. But primitive society also had universality, since it allowed people to satisfy basic needs not only for food, clothing and housing, but also for explaining the world around them, for creative self-expression, etc.

Thirdly, society has a high level internal self-regulation, ensuring the constant reproduction of the entire complex system of social relations. This is reflected in the creation of special institutions (such as morality, ideology, law, religion, state) that ensure compliance with the generally accepted “rules of the game.” There are different opinions regarding which institutions play a more important role in the processes of self-regulation. Some social scientists consider formal institutions (for example, “common power”, like E. Shils) to be the basis for the stability of society, while others consider informal institutions (for example, the “fundamental values” prevailing in society, like R. Merton). Apparently, at the initial stages of the development of society, its self-regulation rests mainly on informal institutions (taboo in primitive society, the code of honor of medieval knights), but then formal institutions begin to play a greater role (written law, government agencies, public organizations).

Fourthly, society has internal self-renewal mechanisms– inclusion of new social formations in the existing system of interrelations. It seeks to subordinate newly emerging institutions and social groups to its logic, forcing them to act in accordance with previously established social norms and rules (this happens during the evolution of society). But new norms and rules, gradually accumulating, can lead to qualitative changes in the entire system of social relations (this happens during a social revolution). Deviations from socially accepted rules and norms encourage the system to find new means to maintain balance and stability. The driving forces can be not only the contradictions of internal development, but also “the drawing of non-systemic elements into the orbit of systemism” (Yu. Lotman) - this was the case, for example, with capitalism in the 1930s, which actively used some principles of socialism. At the same time, the degree of openness of social systems is very important - the desire to actively adopt the experience of other systems (open society) or, on the contrary, the desire to close themselves off, fencing themselves off from external influences (closed society).

Thus, society is a universal way of organizing the social interaction of people, ensuring the satisfaction of their basic needs, self-regulating, self-reproducing and self-renewing.

Structure of society.

Society has a certain structure. What are the criteria for identifying structural parts - subsystems of society? There are several of these criteria: some of them are based on the identification of social groups, others - spheres of social activity, and others - ways of interconnection between people (Table 1).

Table 1. COMPANY STRUCTURE
Criteria for identifying elements of society	Basic elements of society
Social groups (“mini-societies”) that make up the “big” society	Groups that differ in natural and social characteristics (socio-territorial, socio-demographic, socio-ethnic). Groups that differ according to purely social characteristics (according to the criteria of attitude to property, income level, attitude to power, social prestige)
Spheres of life of society	Material production (economics). Regulatory activities – communication and management (policy). Spiritual production (culture).
Ways of connecting people	Social roles performed by individuals. Social institutions and social communities that organize social roles. Culture and political activity that organize the reproduction of social institutions and social communities.

1) Typology of social groups.

The primary grounds for identifying social groups that differ from each other lie, first of all, in natural factors that divide people by gender, age, and race. We can distinguish socio-territorial communities (city residents and rural residents, US citizens and Russian citizens), gender (men, women), age (children, youth, etc.), socio-ethnic (clan, tribe, nationality, nations , ethnicity).

Any society is also structured according to purely social parameters associated with vertical stratification. For K. Marx, the main criterion was the attitude to the means of production, to property (the classes of haves and have-nots). M. Weber included in the main criteria for the typology of social groups, in addition to the attitude to property and income level, also the attitude to power (by highlighting the groups of managers and managed) and social prestige.

As society develops, the importance of typologizing social groups according to natural factors decreases and the importance of social criteria increases. Moreover, old natural factors are transformed, filled with social content. For example, racial conflict remains a pressing problem in modern America, but not so much because a few racists continue to consider African-Americans as “inferior people”, but because of the culture of poverty typical of black neighborhoods, which is why the typical black person is perceived as a dangerous outcast.

2) Typology of spheres of society.

The decisive moments that determine the structure of society are the factors that made possible the very birth of human society - labor, communication and knowledge. They underlie the identification of three main spheres of society’s life – material production, regulatory activity, and spiritual production, respectively.

The main sphere of life of society is most often recognized material production. Its influence on other areas can be traced in three directions.

Firstly, without the products of material production, neither science, nor politics, nor medicine, nor education are possible, for which labor tools are needed in the form of laboratory equipment, military equipment, medical instruments, school buildings, etc. It is material production that creates the necessary means of life people in the household sphere - food, clothing, furniture, etc.

Secondly, the method of material production (“productive forces”) largely determines the methods of other types of activity. People, producing the things they need, create, without wanting it, a certain system of social relations (“relations of production”). Everyone knows, for example, what economic consequences the use of machines led to in modern Europe. The result of the industrial revolution was the emergence and establishment of capitalist relations, which were created not by politicians, but by workers in material production as a “by-product” of their labor activity. The dependence of “relations of production” on “productive forces” is the main idea of ​​K. Marx’s social teaching, which has become more or less generally accepted.

Thirdly, in the process of material production, people create and consolidate a certain type of mentality, resulting from the very nature of labor operations. Thus, material production (“base”) solves the main problems that determine the development of spiritual production (“superstructure”). For example, the work of a writer as a producer of spiritual goods is ineffective without printing.

Social life involves a complex system of social connections that connect people and things together. In some cases, such connections may develop spontaneously, as a by-product of activities pursuing completely different goals. However, for the most part they are created consciously and purposefully. This is exactly what it is regulatory activities.

The regulatory type of activity covers many specific types of work, which can be divided into two subtypes. One of them is communicative activity - establishing connections between various elements of society (market exchange, transport, communications). Another subtype of regulatory activity is social management, the purpose of which is to regulate the joint behavior of subjects (politics, religion, law).

The third sphere of social life is spiritual production. Its main product is not objects in which information is embodied (books, film), but the information itself addressed to human consciousness - ideas, images, feelings. If before the scientific and technological revolution the production of information was considered as relatively minor, secondary to the production of things, then in the modern era it is the production of ideas that becomes most important. Due to the high importance of spiritual production, modern society is increasingly called the “information society.”

To understand the relationship between various spheres of social life, modern social science continues to use the logical scheme “base - superstructure” proposed by K. Marx (Fig. 1). However, scientists emphasize that this scheme cannot be absolute, since there are no hard boundaries between its different components. For example, management (people management) is simultaneously the most important factor in material production, regulatory activity, and the production of values ​​(for example, corporate culture).

Rice. 1. The structure of the life of society, according to the theory of K. Marx.

3) Typology of ways of connecting people.

The main concepts that explain the ways in which people interact in society are social roles, social institutions and social communities.

Social role defined as expected behavior in a typical situation. It is social roles that make the interactions of people in society stable, standardizing their behavior. It is roles that are the primary elements into which the fabric of social interactions in society can be divided. Social roles are diverse, and the larger the set, the more complex the society. In modern society, one and the same person during one day can alternately act in a dozen social roles (husband, father, son, brother, passerby, friend, boss, subordinate, colleague, buyer, scientist, citizen...).

Different social roles are connected by countless threads. There are two main levels of organization and orderliness of social roles: social institutions and communities. Social institutions– these are the “rules of the game” in society (the rule of shaking hands when meeting, elections of political leaders, contract work for a predetermined salary...). Social communities– these are organized groups that develop these rules and monitor their compliance (government, scientific community, family...). Thanks to them, roles are connected with each other, their reproduction is ensured, guarantees of their stability are created, sanctions are developed for violating norms, and complex systems of social control arise.

The diversity of institutions and communities requires the development of two special mechanisms for organizing social life, which complement each other - culture and political power.

Culture accumulates the experience of previous generations (traditions, knowledge, values). Thanks to it, in the consciousness and behavior of people united by historical fate and territory of residence, patterns of behavior that are value-significant for society (“patterns,” as T. Parsons called them) are constantly reproduced. Culture, thus, sets the general tone for the development of society (). However, its ability to reproduce stable social connections is limited. Innovation processes in society often become so intense that as a result, social formations appear that oppose the previously established value-normative order (as happened, for example, in our country on the eve of the revolutionary year 1917). Purposeful efforts are required to restrain disintegration processes, and institutions take on this function political power.

Thanks to culture and political power, society manages to maintain a single normative order, which, by ensuring the interconnection of institutions and communities, organizes them into a systemic integrity, “creating society.” Only culture maintains and reproduces mainly established norms tested by the experience of many generations, and politics constantly initiates the creation new laws and legal acts, strives for a rational search for optimal ways of developing society (but, unfortunately, often makes mistakes in its choice).

Rice. 2. RELATIONSHIP SYSTEM people in society.

Thus, society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles. Social roles are organized into various institutions and communities that make up the second level of society. Differences in the functions performed, discrepancies, and sometimes confrontation of the goals of institutions and communities require a third level of organization of society. It is a subsystem of mechanisms that maintain a unified order in society - the culture of society and state regulation.

Functioning of society.

The functioning of society is its constant self-reproduction.

The prevailing point of view in modern science, revealing the mechanism of the functioning of society, is the concept of T. Parsons. In his opinion, the main element of society is a person with his needs, aspirations, knowledge, skills and preferences. It is the source of the strength of society as a system; it determines whether it will exist at all. That is why the most complex set of mechanisms for the functioning of society is focused primarily on control over a person. The basis of this complex is socialization(“introduction” of a person into society). During socialization, individuals learn to fulfill the roles prescribed by society and are formed as full-fledged individuals ( cm. PERSONALITY), which ensures the constant reproduction of existing social connections. The more developed a society is, the more complex the processes of socialization take place in it. Previously, the family played a decisive role in the socialization of new generations; now this function has largely been transferred to the system.

But not all individuals fit into the existing system of status-role relations. Individual properties of individuals, as a rule, turn out to be broader and more diverse than the socializing force of society. These properties constantly generate people’s desire to change existing orders and provoke the emergence of deviations from the norm (deviations), the critical level of which can throw the system out of balance. In this case, the “insurance mechanism” is activated - the state, which takes on the task of restraining deviant behavior, using the means in its arsenal, including the use of direct violence.

The socialization mechanism, even multiplied by the power of state coercion, cannot restrain innovative processes for a long time. Therefore, in the context of the growth of such processes, the fate of society begins to depend on the work of another important mechanism - institutionalization, the birth of new institutions. Thanks to it, new structural formations are created, new status-role relationships are formalized, which did not find a place for themselves in previously existing institutions and communities.

Institutionalization can be natural in the form of gradual standardization of emerging types of interaction, normative design of corresponding roles (an example could be the formation of serfdom in medieval Russia - from the gradual restriction of the right of peasant transitions to the complete abolition of St. George's Day). It can also be artificial, as if inverted, when norms and rules are first created, and then real participants in the interaction appear. A typical example of artificial institutionalization is structural reforms (such as the radical economic reforms in Russia in the early 1990s). Artificial institutionalization is, as it were, proactive, channeling possible but not yet fully manifested types of interaction. Because of this, it is possible only thanks to state support, since it requires elements of coercion, without which the development of new roles by individuals may take too long or even fail. Therefore, the main conductor of structural reforms in society is the state, which has the necessary resources for this.

However, state intervention in the processes of institutionalization has its limits. Society cannot allow, for example, the ruling elite, relying on violence, at its own discretion, based only on its own ideas and interests, to reshape the fabric of social interactions. Therefore, there is a third mechanism for the functioning of society - legitimation. Thanks to it, there is a constant comparison of the results of socialization and institutionalization with generally accepted value patterns of the culture of a given society. As a result, there is a kind of “culling” of those new formations that do not correspond to the existing system of values. This maintains the integrity of society while developing its internal diversity. For example, Protestantism played in the modern era the role of a mechanism for legitimizing the desire to get rich, encouraging an honest pursuit of wealth and “culling out” the desire for “profit at any cost.”

Development of society: a formational approach.

In the modern world there are different types of societies that differ sharply from each other in many respects. A study of the history of society shows that this diversity existed before, and many years ago such types of society predominated (slave society, polygamous families, community, caste...), which are extremely rare today. In explaining the diversity of types of society and the reasons for the transition from one type to another, two conceptual approaches collide - formational and civilizational (Table 2). Followers formational approach They see progress (qualitative improvement) in the development of society, a transition from lower to higher types of society. On the contrary, supporters civilizational approach emphasize the cyclical nature and equivalence of different social systems in the development of society.

Table 2. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FORMATIONAL AND CIVILIZATIONAL APPROACHES
Criteria	Formational approach	Civilizational approach
Long-term trends in the history of society	Progress – qualitative improvement	Cycle – periodic repetition
Basic public systems	Successively changing formations	Coexisting civilizations
Defining features of a social system	Organization of material production	Spiritual values
Ways of development of society	Existence of a main (“backbone”) path of development	Multiplicity of equivalent development paths
Comparing social systems with each other	Some formations are better (more progressive) than others	Different civilizations are fundamentally equivalent
The influence of social systems on each other	A more developed formation destroys less developed ones	Civilizations can exchange cultural values ​​to a limited extent

The idea that society in its progressive development goes through some universal stages was first expressed by A. Saint-Simon. However, the formational approach received a relatively complete form only in the mid-19th century. in the social teachings of K. Marx, which explains the process of human development as a progressive ascent from one form of society (formation) to another. In the 20th century The Marxist approach was dogmatized by Soviet social science, which established the concept of five modes of production as the only correct interpretation of Marx’s theory of formations.

The concept of “socio-economic formation” in Marx’s teaching occupies a key place in explaining the driving forces of the historical process and the periodization of the history of society. Marx proceeded from the following principle: if humanity naturally progressively develops as a single whole, then all of it must go through certain stages in its development. He called these stages “ socio-economic formations" According to Marx’s definition, a socio-economic formation is “a society at a certain stage of historical development, a society with unique distinctive characteristics” (Marx K., Engels F. Soch. T.6. P.442).

The basis of a socio-economic formation, according to Marx, is one or another mode of production, which is characterized by a certain level and nature of development of the productive forces and production relations corresponding to this level and nature. The totality of production relations forms its basis, over which political, legal and other relations and institutions are built, which in turn correspond to certain forms of social consciousness (morality, religion, art, philosophy, science, etc.). Thus, a specific socio-economic formation is the entire diversity of the life of society at a historically specific stage of its development.

Within the framework of “Soviet Marxism”, the opinion was established that from the point of view of the formational approach, humanity in its historical development necessarily goes through five main formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and the future communist (“real socialism” was considered as the first phase of the communist formation). It was this scheme, which took hold in the 1930s, that later received the name among critics “five-member” concepts(Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. DOGMATIZED MARXIST SCHEME OF SOCIAL FORMATIONS

The transition from one social formation to another is carried out through a social revolution. The economic basis of the social revolution is the deepening conflict between, on the one hand, the productive forces of society that have reached a new level and acquired a new character and, on the other hand, the outdated, conservative system of production relations. This conflict in the political sphere is manifested in the strengthening of antagonistic contradictions and the intensification of the class struggle between the ruling class, interested in preserving the existing system, and the oppressed classes, demanding an improvement in their situation.

Revolution leads to a change in the ruling class. The victorious class carries out transformations in all spheres of public life. This creates the prerequisites for the formation of a new system of socio-economic, legal and other social relations, a new consciousness, etc. This is how a new formation is formed. In this regard, in the Marxist social concept, a significant role was assigned to the class struggle and revolutions. The class struggle was declared to be the most important driving force in the development of society, and political revolutions were declared to be the “locomotives of history.”

The main long-term trend in the development of society in Marx’s theory is considered to be a “return” to a classless and non-exploitative society, but no longer a primitive one, but a highly developed one – a society “beyond material production.” Between primitiveness and communism there are social systems based on private exploitation (slavery, feudalism, capitalism). After achieving communism, the further development of society will not stop, but the economic factor will cease to play the role of the main “engine” of this development.

Marx's concept of the formational development of society, as recognized by most modern social scientists, has undoubted strengths: it clearly names the main criterion for periodization (economic development) and offers an explanatory model of all historical development, which allows different social systems to be compared with each other according to their degree of progressivity. But she also has weaknesses.

Firstly, the formational approach of the “five-member” concept assumes the unilinear nature of historical development. The theory of formations was formulated by Marx as a generalization of the historical path of Europe. Marx himself saw that some countries do not fit into this pattern of alternating five formations. He attributed these countries to the so-called “Asian mode of production.” He expressed the idea that a special formation would be formed on the basis of this method of production, but he did not conduct a detailed analysis of this issue. Meanwhile, most of the pre-capitalist societies developed precisely in the countries of the East, and neither slaves nor feudal lords were typical for them (at least in the Western European understanding of these classes). Later, historical studies showed that in Europe, too, the development of some countries (for example, Russia) is quite difficult to “adjust” to the pattern of changing five formations. Thus, the formational approach in its traditional form creates great difficulties for understanding the diversity and multivariate development of society.

Secondly, the formational approach is characterized by a strict connection of any historical phenomena to the method of production, the system of economic relations. The historical process is considered, first of all, from the point of view of the formation and change of the mode of production: decisive importance in explaining historical phenomena is given to objective, extra-personal factors, and a person is given a secondary role. Man appears in this theory only as a cog in a powerful objective mechanism. Thus, the human, personal content of the historical process, and with it the spiritual factors of historical development, is belittled.

Thirdly, the formational approach absolutizes the role of conflict relations, including violence, in the historical process. With this methodology, the historical process is described primarily through the prism of class struggle. Opponents of the formational approach point out that social conflicts, although they are a necessary attribute of social life, but, as many believe, spiritual and moral life plays an equally important role.

Fourthly, the formational approach contains, according to many critics (for example, K. Popper), elements of providentialism (predetermination). The concept of formations assumes the inevitability of the development of the historical process from a classless primitive communal through class (slave, feudal and capitalist) to a classless communist formation. Marx and his disciples spent a lot of effort to practically prove the inevitability of the victory of socialism, where market self-development is replaced by state regulation of all parameters of social life. The creation of a “socialist camp” after World War II was considered a confirmation of formation theory, although the “socialist revolutions” in Eastern Europe reflected not so much the advantages of “communist ideas” as the geopolitical expansion of the USSR. When in the 1980s the overwhelming majority of countries in the “socialist camp” abandoned the “building of communism,” this began to be viewed as proof of the fallacy of the formation theory as a whole.

Although Marx’s formation theory is subject to strong criticism, the dominant paradigm of social development in modern social science, the concept of post-industrial society, shares almost all the basic principles of Marx’s theory, although it highlights other stages of social development.

According to this theory (it is based on the ideas of O. Toffler, D. Bell and other institutional economists), the development of society is considered as a change in three socio-economic systems - pre-industrial society, industrial society and post-industrial society (Table 3). These three social systems differ in the main factors of production, leading sectors of the economy and dominant social groups (). The boundaries of social systems are socio-technological revolutions: the Neolithic revolution (6–8 thousand years ago) created the prerequisites for the development of pre-industrial exploitative societies, the industrial revolution (18–19 centuries) separates industrial society from pre-industrial society, and the scientific and technological revolution (with second half of the 20th century) marks the transition from industrial to post-industrial society. Modern society is a transitional stage from the industrial to the post-industrial system.

The Marxist theory of social formations and the institutional theory of post-industrial society are based on similar principles, common to all formational concepts: economic development is considered as the fundamental basis for the development of society, this development itself is interpreted as a progressive and staged process.

Development of society: civilizational approach.

The methodology of the formational approach in modern science is to some extent opposed by the methodology civilizational approach. This approach to explaining the process of social development began to take shape back in the 18th century. However, it received its most complete development only in the 20th century. In foreign historiography, the most prominent adherents of this methodology are M. Weber, A. Toynbee, O. Spengler and a number of major modern historians united around the French historical journal “Annals” (F. Braudel, J. Le Goff, etc.). In Russian science, his supporters were N.Ya. Danilevsky, K.N. Leontiev, P.A. Sorokin, L.N. Gumilyov.

The main structural unit of the process of social development, from the point of view of this approach, is civilization. Civilization is understood as a social system bound by common cultural values ​​(religion, culture, economic, political and social organization, etc.), which are consistent with each other and closely interconnected. Each element of this system bears the stamp of the originality of a particular civilization. This uniqueness is very stable: although certain changes occur in civilization under the influence of certain external and internal influences, their certain basis, their inner core remains unchanged. When this core is eroded, the old civilization dies and is replaced by another, with different values.

Along with the concept of “civilization,” proponents of the civilizational approach widely use the concept of “cultural-historical types,” which are understood as historically established communities that occupy a certain territory and have their own characteristics of cultural and social development that are characteristic only of them.

The civilizational approach, according to modern social scientists, has a number of strengths.

First, its principles apply to the history of any country or group of countries. This approach is focused on understanding the history of society, taking into account the specifics of countries and regions. True, the other side of this versatility there is a loss of criteria for which features of this specificity are more significant and which are less.

Secondly, emphasizing specificity necessarily presupposes the idea of ​​history as a multilinear, multivariate process. But awareness of this multivariance does not always help, and often even makes it difficult to understand which of these options are better and which are worse (after all, all civilizations are considered equal).

Thirdly, the civilizational approach assigns a priority role in the historical process human spiritual, moral and intellectual factors. However, emphasizing the importance of religion, culture, and mentality for characterizing and assessing civilization often leads to abstraction from material production as something secondary.

The main weakness of the civilizational approach is amorphousness criteria for identifying types of civilization. This identification by supporters of this approach is carried out according to a set of characteristics, which, on the one hand, should be of a fairly general nature, and on the other, would allow us to identify specific features characteristic of many societies. As a result, just as there is a constant discussion between supporters of the formational approach about the number of main formations (their number most often varies from three to six), different adherents of the civilizational approach name a completely different number of main civilizations. N.Ya. Danilevsky counted 13 types of “original civilizations”, O. Spengler – 8, A. Toynbee – 26 (Fig. 4).

Most often, when identifying types of civilizations, a confessional criterion is used, considering religion to be a concentrate of cultural values. So, according to Toynbee, in the 20th century. There are 7 civilizations - Western Christian, Orthodox Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Confucian (Far Eastern), Buddhist and Judaic.

Another weakness of the civilizational approach, which reduces its attractiveness, is the denial of progress in the development of society (or at least emphasizing its homogeneity). For example, according to P. Sorokin, society constantly revolves within the cycle “ideational culture - idealistic culture - sensual culture” and is unable to go beyond its limits (Fig. 4). This understanding of the development of society is quite organic for Eastern societies, in whose cultural traditions the image of cyclical time dominates, but is not very acceptable for Western societies, in which Christianity has accustomed them to the image of linear time.

Rice. 4. TYPOLOGY OF CIVILIZATIONS(according to A. Toynbee).

Rice. 5. CYCLE OF CULTURES in the development of Western European society, according to P. Sorokin.

Like formational concepts, the civilizational approach also allows for a “simplified” interpretation, and, in this form, can become the basis for the most odious ideologies and regimes. If formational theories provoke social engineering (the forced imposition by some countries of their own, “more progressive” model of development on others), then civilizational theories provoke nationalism and xenophobia (cultural contacts supposedly lead to the destruction of original cultural values).

Both approaches – formational and civilizational – make it possible to consider the historical process from different angles, therefore they do not so much deny as complement each other. It is likely that in the future social scientists will be able to synthesize both of these approaches, avoiding the extremes of each of them.

Vukolova Tatyana, Latov Yuri

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